Off the Wall

It is just four days to Christmas - if you need reminding - but the one
present many rugby league fans want for Christmas won't make it under
the tree in time.

Many of us have had high hopes that the Independent
Commission - perhaps now the fabled Independent Commission - would be
up and running by Christmas delivering on the great challenges facing
our great game.

It would seem that it is all too hard - or vested interests won't or can't put the best interests of the game first.

The whole process has become an embarrassment to those supposedly driving it.

Few emerge from the process with much credit.

We were first told the game would be run by a united, independent
commission, more than two years ago - and it would be months, not years,
before it was up and running.

The failure to deliver on that is shameful...and puts at risk the game's long term viability.

Rugby league really only has one cash cow - television rights. Gate
receipts, sponsors, memberships, and pokies all help...but it is
what free to air and cable television is prepared to pay is what counts
above all else.

The current grossly inferior, embarrassing agreement has one more season to run.

In
the meantime the AFL is already dividing up the spoils from an
agreement that is about double in value the current rugby league
agreement.

In 2012, the AFL will have something like $230 million to hand out from television revenue - the NRL will have about half that.

Wouldn't
you think that those responsible for merging the game's administrations
and setting up the IC would realise that this disparity must be
addressed...and the sooner it is addressed the better?

Over the Christmas/New Year period more than a few company executives
will spend the majority of the holidays working on corporate mergers,
takeovers, and sadly, bankruptcies.

The latest reports suggest that won't be happening with those working on the IC.

Could they do the game, and its fans, just one last favour?

Take time out from your holidays, and get the damn thing up and running by 1 January!